Terry Hill and Gorden (Raging Bull”) Tallis were not the brightest sparks who ever played State of Origin rugby league, but their 1999 confrontation provided perhaps the most emblematic photo of the ferocious interstate rivalry. That’s Laurie Daley’s then receding hairline in the background, now miraculously restored.
Probably the most famous of all was the 1991 clash of the titans with Wally (”The King”) Lewis and Mark Geyer:
Sorry, that’s the best I could find of that one. This photo is of the same incident:
The most recent comparable incident is the Carl Webb-Luke Bailey love-in of 2005:
That’s not how the game should be played but it is one of the most fiercely contested sporting competitions on the planet. As a territorial body contact sport it’s bound to get a bit willing from time to time. The results have been remarkably even. In total 83 matches have now been played. Qld has won 42, NSW 39 and 2 have been drawn.
In series wins the score is Qld 13 and NSW 12 with 2 drawn. It must be noted we won both drawn series as we were the trophy holders in both cases. When it happened a second time they changed the rules.
Total points scored are Queensland 1331 (232 tries), NSW 1312 (224 tries).
Queensland won three series in a row in 1982-84, in 1987-89 and now again in 2006-08 while NSW had three-peats in 1992-94 and 2003-05. It should be noted that we also won the single matches played in 1981 and 1982, so NSW had to wait until 1985 to get a look in. Also after NSW winning the 1985 and 1986 series Queensland won 8 out of 9 matches in the next three years. That’s when Wally really was king, winning 8 man of the match awards out of 30 games played. He probably deserved more. For NSW the winningest award winners were Peter Sterling and Andrew Johns with four each.
So now the question is will Queensland win an unprecedented fourth series in a row in 2009? Guess who should be back:
You can see some NSW players doing their cockroach imitations in the background.
Of course in the great 1980s teams there were a few other players who could play a bit, like Geno, Big Mal, Alfie and Fatty. The current Queensland team has a few of those too, such as this bloke:
The commentators on the night thought Folau sat up on Quinn’s shoulders as they sometimes do in AFL, but you can see from the image of Cooper in the bottom right corner that Quinn is also airborne. Folau is actually almost exactly the same height and weight as the Lions’ Johnathon Brown.
Sydney AFL coach Paul Roos was impressed:
While marks like Folau’s are commonplace in the AFL, what impressed Roos was the way the Storm and Queensland centre controlled his body, contorting it as he placed the ball over the line while still upside down.
“The thing that stood out for me was the way he put it down,” Roos said. “That combination of an AFL mark and rugby league grounding was quite spectacular. It was fantastic - to mark it and twist on the way down.”
Upside down?!! I wonder how he got that way. As you can see in the picture Quinn already has his arm around Folau’s leg. In the dead tree edition of The Australian there was a pic showing Folau coming down on top of Quinn, but his legs were being held up by Cooper who lifted them above the horizontal. But for Quinn underneath, Folau would have landed on the back of his neck. Worth a penalty in front of the post, I reckon, if the ref was fair dinkum. Perhaps Cooper was annoyed at being used as a landing mat by one of the smaller Queensland players:
Actually I think that’s Darius Boyd, who’s 95kg, not far off Cooper’s 98kg. Hard to believe.
I mention the Cooper tackle on Folau in the air because the ref was far from biassed against NSW. There were some rubbish penalties given against Qld, including the one against Civoniceva for a high shot. All big Petero did was to wrap his arms around the NSW player whose moosh ended up on Petero’s breast just below the collar bone. They used to tackle Alfie Langer like that all the time. His moosh straight into their breadbasket. No-one ever got down to hit him below the shoulders.
There is a great picture gallery in the Oz starting with the Folau try. The Thurston/Slater try is there, but stills don’t do that little gem justice. It doesn’t have a pic of the infamous hit by Myles on Ben Cross, but it does have one that looks real bad of Inglis upending Anasta. I thought the Myles tackle was one of those that just went wrong. It wasn’t intentional.
The judiciary thought it was bad and I agree that you can’t tolerate dangerous play of that kind. So Myles has been rubbed out for six matches. But Buderus and a few other people thought he should have been sent off.
Steve Roach spat the dummy when the Anasta pass was ruled forward. To put it another way he fired from the hip and shot himself in the foot. Called the ref a fecking cheat, he did. I thought the pass was flat, but by that time I thought it was a bit of justice. NSW had quite a bit of attacking momentum they didn’t earn. Can anyone tell me how Crocker played at the ball when he turned his scone away to unsuccessfully avoid being hit by the kick, so NSW got six to go?
Anyway we scored 10 tries to four across the whole series and surely deserved the win. I’ll leave you with a shot of Willie Mason last year, who tries really hard but is not quite as effective against Queensland as he is at the NRL level or running over Kiwis:
I look forward to doing it all again next year.
Addendum: As a bonus here’s the Inglis freak try-assist in the centenary test earlier this year:
You can find a description plus a YouTube video of it here.
Yeah I thought there were some pretty ordinary calls against both sides - it was almost distracting from the game at times. I agree that that Folau try was quite impressive. It seemed like he rotated nearly 180 degrees in the air.
I’m a Qlder btw.
BuderUs, with an “u” not i.
Fixed now, thanks Amanda.
A profound observation, Amanda. Very astute!
NSW always have the advantage of being able to draw from about four times as many NRL players as Qld. At present Qld nevertheless seem to have the greater depth. Mike Colman in the Sunday Mail today has a column pointing out NSW’s lack of depth where, for example, they can’t find a half-back and Queensland’s Cooper Cronk, not long ago the test half-back and playing well, can’t get a game.
There are a few interesting articles, but none more so than Bob Lindner lifting the lid on NSW dirty tricks. It seems they guy on the gate wouldn’t let the Qld bus into the grounds.
In other moves they filed a starting line-up an hour before the game without revealing, as they are obliged to do, that Gidley was the starting full-back.
Then NSW always control the rules. Lindner points out that they went for a 10 interchange rule as in the NRL although 12 is the international rule because they thought NSW forwards had more running in them than Qld. Clearly they miscalculated. I’d point out that NSW scored one try in 160 mins of football and that one was scored when we had 12 men on the field. Prince had just come off and hadn’t been replaced yet.
That was in the 15th minute. Playing with 16 men for 65 mins and keeping their line intact with a 10 interchange rule was not what NSW would have expected.
Some of these things are a bit unsavoury, but deserve an airing.
Two words for you QLD. Barry. Gommersal. So shut up about how unfair it all is. Everytime you lose a game I’m sick of hearing all about the ref and then I’m sick of hearing about how NSW complains about the ref after you manage to get a game policed to Qld satisfaction - coming from the kings of whinge (QLD) that’s a bit rich!
NSW’s problems come from the selectors and the coach, not from lack of depth. For example, there are at least four NSW halfbacks who can all do the job - Wallace, Carney, Mullen, and Pearce … and they are all young. But while Laurie Daley and Mccarthy still pick teams the way they do, and Bellamy is coaching them for negative football the NSW halves will be constrained for basically a negative role (clearing kicks) and NSW won’t win a series for a while to come. I will point out the winningest NSW coach of all? Gus Gould.
Anyway it was a good absorbing 80 minute game, Qld won. Get over yourselves. Talk about poor winners!
Great photos there, Brian. And you’ve found photos of the old Lewis/Geyer stoush.
Great stuff.
Barry. Gommersal. Yes, but that was a very long time ago.
Honestly, Tyro, I think NSW are outdoing us in the whinge stakes.
There is always a power differential favouring NSW at the official level. So we are entitled to publicly unmask their dirty tricks. That’s all.
Yes, re Gus Gould and some are calling for his return. He’s the one we fear.
The point of Colman’s article was to point out that the selectors can’t select quality players if they don’t exist. That’s his opinion. I wouldn’t really know because I don’t watch all the teams every week. I’m glad it’s NSW’s problem for once and not ours, which is the usual situation.
The only thing I’ll whinge about is Laurey Bloody Daley and the rest of the selectors who should sack the coach and then themselves. It’s not a problem of who to select from, it’s a problem of who they actually select, and Bellamy’s negative game plan. Look at the way they are now death-riding Anasta all the way to the bottom because he didn’t pull a miracle try out of his arse at the last minute. The game plan the whole series was always to base attack around “winning the wrestle” and Buderus up the middle. That’s why they selected Bird - they didn’t really want a ball playing half. So to think that the Pearce-Anasta “combination” was going to save them at the last minute is a joke if all the quality ball is kept away from the playmakers and the playmakers don’t direct where the ball goes. They won’t stick with that proven combination next year either … they’ll select a new miracle-boy and then crucify him too when he doesn’t deliver.
And with nuffies like Quinn (another Bellamy favorite) on the wing the kicking game of Pearce and Anasta wasn’t going to win anything .. especially facing down Folau who was well protected by his inside men every time the high ball went up whereas Quinn was left on his own.
So I’m not complaining about the officials, NSW won’t win until they pick a long term combination and stick with it. Another two props might help too (really I though Civ and Price won it for Qld, when they were off the field, you looked stuffed) … both Fitzgibbon and Mason play in the back row for Easts. Mason is a damaging ball runner two off the ruck, not up the middle. But I thought his game last week was pretty good considering, he bent the line back most times he ran at it. You just can’t expect him to do the work of a prop. Gallen is a joke, bring back Hindmarsh I say, and select O’Mealy and either Bailey or Ryles.
PS NSW outdo Qld in the whinge stakes? Are you kidding??? You won and you’re still whinging!
There was no conspiracy against Queensland when the ARL went for 10 interchanges rather than 12 interchanges. If there’s a difference between NRL rules and international rules, Origin is always played under the NRL rules. It’s as simple as that. And Lindner appears to believe that NSW picking a side that could operate well under those rules was a dirty trick, which gives you an idea of the level of plausibility of his accusations.
Also, Lindner accusing NSW of complaining about the refereeing, after the astonishing campaign by the Queenslanders against Tony Archer post-Origin I, is laughable. This whingeing from him is rather pathetic, really.
They’re a lovely couple and I wish them well. But for the sake of the comfort of others I really do wish they’d get a room.
Only Queenslanders can win Origin and then still complain about the ref.;-)
Good one, Adrien.
Let me be clear. I thought the ref got a few things wrong. They always do. The only thing I’m complaining about is that Cooper tackled Folau when he was in the air and put him in a dangerous position as he was scoring the try. The fact that he wasn’t hurt makes no difference in establishing an offense, according to Greg McCallum(?) the review panel boss on the ABC today (on another matter).
I’ll give some links later in the night if I get time, but Meninga asked Finch, the referees boss, after Origin 1, whether the referee shouldn’t police the ruck area in the same way as he would an NRL match. Finch agreed, said he wasn’t satisfied with the way things were done in Origin 1 and would talk to Archer about it. All the whingeing after that, which was considerable, came from NSW.
Tyro R personally I agree with most of what you said. But I’ve been digging holes and humping mulch and I’m going for a feed now.
Adrien: quite. I didn’t realise they were fighting either, until I read the post.
Brian,
I agree that NSW did their fair share of whinging about the ref. My take is that a lot of it was the NSW selectors trying to deflect attention from themselves.
Laurie Daley remarked today on the Footy Show how close scores were in a weak attempt to say that it wasn’t that bad. But the telling stat is that QLD scored ten tries over the series to NSW’s four.
NSW simply did not have a Thurston or Inglis or Folau. That was the difference; a player than can create something from seemingly nothing.
Expect Feleti Mateo to get his allegiance sorted next year if his form continues. NSW need player like him. And some selectors that have some courage to pick the right players and not try and satisfy Bellamy. Some of the selections were very much obviously influence by him and more worth players overlooked.
Shaun, the ABC guys (Hammo, The Wok and David Morrow) were talking about it today. Faecetiously they reckoned the NSW RL Board should be sacked for selecting the wrong selectors! But seriously, Warren Ryan reckons that Bellamy has to answer. Why else would Fulton and McCarthy as Australian selectors select Kite and then ignore him for SOO? Ryan reckons that Price, Civoniceva and Myles did the hard yards for Qld and NSW needed some real front rowers.
Ryan was also channeling you, or you him, about Thurston, Inglis, Slater, Folau being the difference. I thought the game was gone when Cooper scored and Prince went off. NSW seemed to be winning the yardage game, but then the Thurston/Slater try was the game breaker.
Forgive me for enjoying this while I can, because I think inevitably NSW will end up winning more than it loses.
Today I happened to see the beginning of Offsiders, a program I didn’t know existed. They showed the Folau try about three times. Definitely Quinn was in the air. Folau didn’t put his knee on Quinn’s shoulder as they do in AFL.
The second thing is that Cooper ended up standing between Folau’s knees with one hand around each leg holding them up. As Folau’s upper body fell through the horizontal, and his fall was broken by landing on Quinn, he reached over his head backwards and put the ball down with one hand.
I understand that the likes of Inglis, Slater and Folau have done some practice with one of the AFL teams. I went looking for a shot of Inglis floating through the air, catching the ball above the dead-ball line and throwing it over his shoulder for Gasnier to score. It must be the try-assist of all time.
I’ve added it to the end of the post. It was, of course, the centenary test against new Zealand earlier this year.
That’s enough from me. Got to get back to climate change. I’ll do some images of the blues next year - if they win.